Category: Home Life

Friday Fun – or Not

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

Lots of bloggers do a Friday Fun type blog and I thought I would too this week and talk about the amazing event I went to last night. Only sadly, it wasn’t amazing. Sigh. So this is a not Fun Friday, otherwise known as a review of the Northern Lights Documentary we saw at the Pacific Science Center last night.

I was so super jazzed about this. Northern Lights while staying at an ice hotel has been on my bucket list forever. Yes, I am very specific. laughing. You can imagine I was really really excited about this documentary to learn more about the phenomenon and to watch it even if on an IMAX screen rather than in person.

This necessitated driving into Seattle. I hate driving in Seattle. In fact I hate it so much, that when we moved here 18 months ago, kiddo and I arrived on a Friday night, hubby had been here in corporate housing for a three weeks already. Tuesday we closed on our house out in BFE, and the kiddo and I moved in immediately, even though our stuff wasn’t delivered until Thursday and we had no fridge until Saturday. But we moved in anyway because mommy hated driving in Seattle.

So I drove into Seattle, it wasn’t heinous, parked relatively pain free, and found the hubby was actually where we loosely agreed to meet. We had a picnic, people watched, wandered around a bit. I forgot to bring a book to read to the kiddo while we waited, bad mommy, but we all survived. It was finally 730, yeah, bring on the amazingness.

First loss, they started 15 minutes late. Really?

Then it wasn’t an IMAX film. Little tiny picture on the big IMAX screen. ugh

It was short, less than 30 minutes of which 40% was a travel advertisement for Norway. 40% was heavy brain dump science that went on and on with little spacing to allow the brain to absorb the material. Ten percent was product placement ads. And finally in the last 2-3 minutes you get to see the Aurora Borealis. To be honest it wasn’t even the stunning shots I’ve seen before in random locations. In fact it wasn’t even as good as the faint Aurora I got to see on my honeymoon in Alaska. (yes, I do have unusual taste. I think we’ve covered that before.)

sigh. On the plus side, I only paid 6 dollars for parking, the tickets were free to the doc because we are Science Center Members, and I popped into Starbucks and got another reusable cup for my collection. IS that a win? Maybe. laughing.

There is Taylor Swift in my head

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and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Yesterday reading other people’s blogs gave great prompts for my blog so I thought I would try it again today. The first thing I saw was a video by Taylor, Shake it, I think it’s called, and I was transfixed. Now why was I transfixed? Dancers. Yes, I am admitting to one of my seldom mentioned addictions: dancers, martial artists, yogis with skills – basically anyone who can do things with their body that takes years of practice, fascinates me. One time in Amsterdam I almost missed a comedy show I had tickets to because I couldn’t drag myself away from a street demonstration of Capoeira. Luckily my hubby was there to strong arm me away and down the street. All this is to explain why I watched the entire video and now she’s stuck in my head.

Today my kiddo has to take his Measurement of Academic Progress exam. When you home school through an ALE they want you to prove you’re been effective as a teacher during the year. So my time is short this morning. I need to take advantage of this calm before the storm to write what I can.

I’ll leave you with the words of Taylor (and a few of mine), a players got a play, and a haters got to hate, so this writers got to write.

So Many interesting prompts….

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 1 Comment

Usually I post up here then check out what all the folk I follow have been up to lately in my reader. today for some reason I went the other direction.

So the first prompt that caught my eye was sleep, we spend 1/3 of our day doing it, write about it.

LOL. 1/3 of our day. snort. The prompter must not have small children. I am currently in the midst of trying to change my sleep patterns. When I got Jersey back from the new-old home, I decided I needed to rework my schedule to give him the best chance at being happy here. Not to mention I was only managing to yoga once every three days with my son’s current busy schedule. So away with spending the first two hours of my day drinking coffee and working on my novel and/or blog. Given my 7 – 730 wake up time that was a problem. So I need to roll it back. Today I was woken at 530 and rolled out of bed at 6. I get that isn’t an extreme wake up time but I am a night owl. I never want to sleep before midnight. Actually I took a melatonin last night so I could fall asleep by ten. And that’s my plan, melatonin until my body gets used to sleeping by ten and up at 530. Grand plan isn’t it. LOL. This means I can drink coffee and write until 7, walk the the dog and yoga before by 830 or 9. Get everything done by the time we have to leave the house or start home school depending on the day. The price for this miracle? Giving up all my alone time at night. I love my alone time at night. When the house is quiet and the world is black and comforting outside. I love the vague sensation I am the last human on the planet. Just me and my trusty dog curled up at my side.

But everything costs something and if I want my dog, my health, and my writing I have to pay the price.

Next fun prompt, “Be careful – No man that has gone in there has ever come back alive” “Good thing I’m not a man.” Thanks to Kristen P. You can check her out here. https://wordpress.com/read/blog/id/36299514/

In honor of said prompt a little snippet from my spy novel highlighting Galatea.

Talon and Galatea both nodded their assent. They checked their clips, their knives, and pulled masks down over their faces. A masked assailant always had a psychological advantage over an open one. The unknown was always more frightening than the known.
They slipped out of their fox hole and moved silently towards the house. Ideally Talon and Galatea would take the guards on patrol at the same time and at opposite apexes of their path. They split off from each other moving to where they had decided they should cover the wall. With a quick four step run up each planted a foot part way up the wall and used their momentum and an outward push with the planted foot to grab the top, pull up, and vault through and over with a noiseless landing.
Galatea slipped out one of her 12 inch throwing knives. It weighed less than a pound and felt like a feather in her hand as she adjusted her kneeling stance and prepared to let fly. The guard walked heavily and quickly, marking time rather than looking for actual intruders. She raised her throwing arm back and released halfway through the arc towards straight and parallel to the ground. She continued her arm’s swing to move her body forward into a three pointed crouch. When his body hit the ground she leapt forward into a low sprint and reclaimed her knife wiping the blood off onto his body and replacing the weapon gently in its sheath. She slipped around the cool mud exterior in the shadows of the many plants unwisely allowed to grow too close to the home. With excellent cover she moved to meet Talon.  

“Anyone caught discussing books would be executed in the marketplace”

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 3 Comments

No, this isn’t from some dystopian novel I’ve started writing. laughing. File that under things that will never happen. It’s from the establishment of the Chinese nation, quite some time ago. My son and I have been listening to Story of the World, Ancient History while driving around lately. It’s good for him, he is happier to do the History lesson when we get to it in my lesson plan if he’s heard the CD chapter a few times already.

It’s good for me too because I hear little things that I hadn’t before. I know I have a degree in history but my focus was on Wars of the Twentieth century. I did take some ancient, Africa and Rome. But all my other classes focused 1740 forward.

So this morning when the CD was explaining how China was united by a ruler named Chin (hence China) who overcame multiple other warlords and maintained his dynasty by severe rule, I heard this bit about book burning and discussing books being punishable by death. And it occurs to me there are so many ways I could have died if I had lived in another time.

I went through a whole phase where if you told me not to do something, I did it, just to see what would happen. Luckily I live in the United States and it was the nineties, so I got told things like don’t get that tattoo (I have three), don’t get that piercing (I’ve had 6), if you don’t go to college you’ll never get a job (ha and double ha), you’ll never make it as a writer (still proving that one wrong), etc etc etc

Even right now I have blue and purple hair. House wives shouldn’t have multi colored hair. Shrug. Kiss it.

Ok, maybe it wasn’t a phase as such but a way of life.

So you can imagine if I was told “Do not discuss books in public.”

There I am on my quickly nailed together box (no soap boxes back then), speaking persuasively in favor of books: of what you can learn, how they can change your life, that a populace that can read will never be truly oppressed…right up until they cut my head off with an ax.

So there my head is, staring up at you from the ground, asking what are you doing that everyone or even just one someone told you, you can’t, you shouldn’t, you won’t…..

Yesterday was amazing….

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Not only did I get that blog post written while helping my son with his home school but I managed to edit two chapters in my spy novel. I haven’t worked on that in almost a month, woot. I would call that effective. To ice the whole cake, my son read me a book yesterday for the first time ever. Which means in three months of home school I taught him to read from a place where he did not even know most of his letters, let alone what sounds they made.

I also announced to my hubby that the thing that will have to give, since we got Jersey back, is the house. And he said. Ok honey.

hrm….good thing he’s not at all observant. LOL

My son read me a book. Giggle, bounce, gleeful little dance!

I am not tired, I am frustrated

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I think I have said that like nine times the last ten minutes. Homeschooling is painful. It really is. But growth is always painful. Or so I remind myself son a daily basis, so I will keep taking a deep breathe and help my son grow.

Yesterday was my first do it all weekday since Jersey came back home. Sigh. I did not get everything done. Surprise, surprise. I suppose if it had been easy before I wouldn’t have been looking to rehome my dogs in the first place. Somehow I need to find a way to recalibrate the math and make more hours in the day.

Right now I am writing this blog while I help my son with his reading/writing home school work. How effective is that? I have no idea. Laughing. But since I plan to move from the blog to working on my spy novel in a minute, I’ll let you know later.

Just when you thought it was safe to make plans….

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Friday night I got a call from the dogs’ new owners. Jersey had been digging in their back yard and they rent. Would I please take him back but they want to keep Blue. Absolutely.

So after I hang up the phone, my husband asks how I feel about this and I tell him quite honestly I’m not sure I can do it again. Jersey was my dog. And giving him up was excruciating. So hubby says, Ok, let’s try keeping him and see how it goes with just him.

I picked him up Saturday morning. He was definitely wigged out the first day but has since settled back in to home. I think he’s happier being the only dog in the house, maybe.

But getting him back means I need to make some changes so I can meet his needs now a long with everything else on my list. sigh. What it really means is I need to get up an hour earlier so I can walk him before my husband leaves for work. The problem with that, I am NOT a morning person in the worst way.

Take today for example, first day I need to get up at 6 so I can spend an hour drinking coffee and working on my writing, before I walk the dog. I rolled out of bed at 740, pulled on the first clothes I could find, poured myself a cup of coffee in a to-go mug and started walking the dog with my eyes still mostly closed. I don’t think I even remember the first stumbling half of the walk.

I could continue to get up at 730 and have time to walk the dog before the hubby leaves for work, if I want to repeat the stumbling along with coffee experience daily, but that would mean giving up my writing time. And this is the kind of decision that led to me agreeing to rehome them in the first place. I remember in my 20s getting up at 445 to work out before being at the office at 7. I remember the job I had with a 5 AM start time. I had no problem making these hours. Why can’t I get up?

I think it’s because patiently and kindly handling my son all day long is more exhausting than when I worked two jobs, than when I worked a full time job and I went to college. And that sucks.

If only I knew then….

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Remember when you were a kid and you would say when I’m an adult I’ll …

go to disneyland every day

eat ice cream for dinner

never go to bed

etc, etc, etc

And your parents would say just wait, when you’re an adult you’ll find out you have to go to work every day, and pay the mortgage, and the car payment, put dinner on the table, etc, etc, etc.

Sure they were right. But those things aren’t that hard really.

Why didn’t anyone ever talk about what’s really hard being an adult. Making the choices that you hate for because it is the right thing to do for everyone involved. That’s what sucks about being an adult.

I  spent a good hour yesterday bawling like a baby after I rehomed my two dogs. It made sense logically. They were not getting their needs met with us, not since I started home schooling my kiddo. And the situation was not going to improve anytime in the next several years. Home schooling is only going to get more time intensive, the subjects that are hard for the kiddo will only get more complicated. The house must be cleaned, I can’t afford a cleaner. Food bought, meals cooked. These things are not negotiable.

What is negotiable is this: the dogs, my health, my attempt at a writing career. Which one to give up? Which one do I stop spending time on? This is the part that is hard about being an adult.

Clearly, I picked the dogs. I met with a couple who was interested. They brought their current dog with them, he was healthy and friendly. They seemed nice. I let them take my four legged babies home. Then I cried, all the way home, and for some time once I got home, until she sent me a text, with picture of my four legged babies happily laying on the deck at their place.

This morning my house felt empty. My son wanted to talk about the dogs again, it’s how he processes. I managed not to cry but it was a struggle. And then I got a phone call from the new owners, they took the dogs to the vet this morning. Suddenly I feel so much better. They are responsible enough pet owners to get their new babies immediately checked by the vet. Of course, I knew the dogs were healthy, but they checked.

I think everyone will be happier in the long run and quite possibly in the short run for the dogs. They have a new four legged playmate, a huge forest to run in, owners without children who spend their free time hiking and camping.

My husband is already perkier (he doesn’t like pets).

My son gleefully announced, “I forgot to put my shoes away and the dogs didn’t chew them, because the dogs aren’t here,” this morning.

I will eventually finish grieving. But for now, please ignore the occasional fat tear that sneaks down my cheek.

It is my son’s sixth birthday

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 5 Comments

In his honor I will enumerate six things I love about him.

1) He knows things. Things that only someone with seriously emotional intelligence would know. Things it took me 30 plus years to learn.

2) He will always have a cuddle with his mommy. Even when I am cranky and irritable and short with him, he will give me a cuddle to help me be in a better mood. He meets irritation with love. I’m still working on that one.

3) He makes me look good. Every where I take him people love him and think he is an amazing little child.

4) He can admit when he doesn’t know things. Another thing it took me like 30 years to learn.

5) He traded in a love of Thomas the Tank engine for Star Wars. This may seem small to the uninitiated but when your child loves something it is a huge part of your life, and I HATED Thomas.

6) Some of my best friends, the people I am closest too, that always get me, that always support me, I met because Henry made friends with their kids. Because Henry makes friends with everyone, every where he goes, every day.

So here’s to an amazing little kid who makes those around him feel special and loved.

Why I love my husband…

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Several amusing things happened today which highlight why I love my husband.

A) We lost power this morning, fuse blew on the line at the road. I say “I really wish we had brewed coffee before that happened.” My husband replies, “Let’s go get coffee and go to the lake.”

-Ahhh heaven.

B) I’ve been coaching my son’s team and one of his favorite games is hit the coach. All the kids try to kick the ball into you as you run around. It’s a great game for teaching them to pass to a moving target, which ideally will happen during the game, and they get the fun of “hitting” the coach. Because they are five year old boys, I jazz it up by letting the one who hit me pick an animal, which I act like including sound effects, until the next kid hits me. So while at said lake, we were helping our son with his soccer skills. We played a little hit the coach and while my son was digging in the sand, my husband gently kicks the ball and it rolls into me. He says, “Hit the coach.” I ask what animal sound he wants me to make. Without missing a beat he replies, “warble like a nightingale.” I gave the only proper reply “tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet.” (It’s a Tiki room reference-one of my fave things at Disneyland)

C) driving home from the lake I complain I now have the tiki room song stuck in my head, to which my husband replies, “Well we’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got.” totally deadpan. Bastard. Now, I’m singing that.

D) We’re putting away the groceries my husband took our five year old to costco for….

E) yeah, the trip to costco deserved it’s own line item. Anyway my husband starts telling how he read this interesting fact the other day about cooking and the poverty class in history. After he gets done I smile and say “Yeah, on my blog.” ROFL

Someone quoted my blog to me. That’s never happened before.